PROPERTIES OF CRYPTOGxiMIC PLAIN^TS. 43 



and dried, would answer as tow or cotton for a variety of pur- 

 poses. Liglitfoot, in 17YT, states that he saw in Edinburgh a 

 coarse kind of paper made of it. Wade's PI. Eariores, 163, 



Corallina officinalis, L. Halifax. W. H. H. 



The discovery of the spores in this plant do not allow us any 

 longer to doubt respecting its vegetable nature (Richard). By 

 analysis of M. Bouvier, in Ann. de Chim. viii. 308, it was found 

 to contain a notable quantity of gelatine and of albumen, and a 

 very large proportion of carb. of lime, of magnesia, of sulpli. of 

 lime, and hydrochlorate of soda. The taste is disagreeable. It 

 is sometimes prescribed as an anthelmintic. Richard, Elms, 

 d'llist. Kat. Medicale, ii. 9; Ann. de ITat. 1842; Ant. 119. 



Calothrix luteola, Grev. Opaque Parasitical Calothrix. 



Eilaments exceedingly slender, tortuous, and tapering, of a 

 snow-white color, and so opaque as to appear intensely black 

 when viewed asj-ainst the lie-ht. Most of them are variegated 

 with pellucid fascise, caused by the destruction or escape of the 

 coloring matter. In the water, this minute parasite gives a 

 downy appearance to the plants on which it grows. Carm. MSS. 

 ■Crypt. Eng. 



n 1 ,7 - • K i White Calothrix. In sulphur sprinsfs ; 

 Catothrix mvea. Ag. i , , ■, , . -J^. ^ ■„- 



^ ( hot sulphur sprmgs near JNiagara. liar. 



Dr. Dillon assures us " that this species is found below the 



spring no further than as the water retains sensible sulphureous 



qualities, as if the hepatic gas was necessary to its production 



and nourishment." Dill. Crypt. Eng. 



OsciUatoria, Yauch. 



Dr. Hooper cites Capt. Carmichael's ingenious remarks in his 

 " Alg?e Alpinensis," wnder Oscillatoria. "I have been induced 

 to bestow considerable attention to the species which fell under 

 my notice, on account of the singular motion remarked in the 

 filaments by various naturalists ; and I do confess that the result 

 is something like conviction that they belong rather to the ani- 

 mal than to the vegetable kingdom. The motion or oscillation 

 has been attributed to various causes — to the rapidity of growth, 

 to the action of light, or to the agitation of the water in which 



